


crash and burn girl

by firstaudrina



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Abortion, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2019-02-13 16:09:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12987657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/firstaudrina
Summary: Blair is not prepared for the full force of Humphrey's affections.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A combination of rewatching s4 (why would I do this to myself) and being sort of gently inspired by _Obvious Child_ /some other stuff. And also wanting to write Blair getting her shit together and DB being a normal couple. Wecouldhavehaditall.mp3.

One kiss turns into two and three and four, until Blair's arms are wrapped all the way around Dan's neck and the distance between them has closed completely. Somewhere in the middle of kiss number five she suddenly comes to her senses (maybe something to do with Dan's hand on her ass) and thrusts him violently away. Dan skids a little, looking as confused as she feels. His mouth is soft and blurry.

They look at each other for a protracted moment before Blair declares, "That was terrible." She turns for the stairs, waiting until she's climbed a few to add, "Are you coming?"

It only seems to compound his confusion, but he does follow her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blair had seen Dan at Film Forum sitting three rows ahead, _Nénette_ on screen. He was taking up an obscene amount of space, sitting low with his legs edging over into the seat-space on either side, that obnoxious boy-sprawl that they do. He was eating popcorn. Blair only noticed him because there was a dense tumbleweed of hair blocking the screen directly in front of her and really, who else would it belong to?

Right then, it felt like sitting three rows behind Dan Humphrey in the cinema was the final nail in her holiday's coffin. Serena was on her road trip, Nate was with his grandfather, Eric was in Gstaad with that new boyfriend who had worse hair than Humphrey. Chuck was in New Zealand. Her mother and Cyrus were shopping for a new house in Aix. Even Dorota was on a little family vacation up in Vermont. Blair was stunningly alone, and stunningly lonely.

As the film went on, Blair found herself wishing she'd gone somewhere – though where would she even have gone, and with whom? No one invited her on a road trip or to look at houses. Once she'd had lots of friends on various tiers, a whole host of acquaintances, but it seemed like everyone had drifted away. Chuck demanded most of her attention until he didn't and now she found herself with an excess of time and nothing to fill it.

Some kind of kerfuffle drew her attention back to Dan. A group of teenagers was being noisy, cackling about the things teenagers found to cackle at during documentaries about French orangutans. And Dan muttered to himself loud enough to carry back towards Blair, "Fucking kids today."

Blair stifled a laugh. She pictured him at St. Jude's, probably muttering similar things to himself as snide people walked away unhearing; as _she_ walked away. The thought made her smile but also made her incomprehensibly sad. For the first time she felt very aware of Dan as a person existing separate from her own life – not just the annoying boyfriend of a friend, the upstart boy from Brooklyn.

Without thinking it through, Blair got up and moved forward a few rows, dropping into the seat at the end of his aisle, two away from him. "That mop on your head is blocking my view," she said, not looking at him. She held out a hand. "Popcorn, Humphrey."

She could feel his eyes on her, huffy and disbelieving. Then he handed over the popcorn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been a very long time since Blair has been with anyone besides – with anyone _different_. She tries to think back: there had been no one all summer in Paris, no one at Columbia (she'd never gone to bed with Boring Cameron), no one else freshman year. She thinks the last non-Chuck person she had sex with was Carter Baizen back in high school. She doesn't know how to feel about that.

At the top of the stairs Dan touches her again, just his hands curling around her waist and pulling her back against his chest. A shiver steals through her, low in her stomach and down to the tips of her fingers. It's surreal. The entire thing is surreal.

"Blair," he starts softly, and she expects any number of questions: are you sure about this, do you want to talk, are we still friends? But he just kisses the side of her neck. So Blair slips the straps of her dress off her shoulders, slides her arms out, and lets the dress fall.

She turns her face towards him a little, nervous and hating it. "Dan?"

He doesn't seem to notice or care about her lingerie, black mesh with jewel-bright blue embroidery, a matched set that cost her two hundred euros, which she's sure he would scoff at. She thought it was cheap, so cheap she almost didn't bother buying it. Dan's hands are smoothing over her stomach and sides now, mouth at the corner of her lips.

Maybe it's because it's been so long, but Blair finds herself oddly shy with Dan, unsure of what to do or how exactly to behave. Sometimes it feels like the things Chuck liked are the only things she knows how to do. What if Dan doesn't like any of that?

They finally make their way into her room, but Blair is struck by a new, horrible thought: what if it's _terrible_? What if their connection is simply intellectual and they were only meant to be friends, nothing more?

What if, afterwards, only _one_ of them thinks that?

It's not until she finally turns to face Dan that she registers the same worries in his expression, the same trepidation in his eyes. It makes her feel better all at once – it makes her feel like she isn't alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning she's disoriented, but only for a moment, long enough to register the weight of Dan's arm around her waist and for the night before to come rushing back.

Like, Dan sitting up against the headboard with her in his lap, the duvet puddled voluminously around them. The brush of his nose against hers as their lips met. Her arms draped around his shoulders and his fingertips digging into her spine. Being so horribly, awfully vulnerable.

Blair looks over at him now, dead asleep and breathing deeply. It's strange for him to be here in her bed. It's one thing to give into one's worst instincts in the middle of the night, but under the scrutiny of daylight –

Dan shifts in his sleep, turning towards her, and Blair thinks suddenly of his hot, open mouth against her collarbone. She commands herself not to regret this. She does not want to regret this. (A tiny voice in her head is saying _you slept with Serena's boyfriend_ but she counters that he isn't Serena's boyfriend anymore, has not been that for years now.)

She slides out of bed without disturbing him, landing cat-like and quiet on her feet. She snatches her robe on the way into the bathroom, where she does her customary morning-after polishing without ending up _too_ polished – not that Humphrey would be able to tell the difference, presumably. She hadn't taken off her makeup before falling asleep and she's embarrassed to see the patchiness of her foundation, the flakes of mascara under her eyes. She hopes she didn't leave any on the pillowcases, how _mortifying_.

Blair brushes her teeth and her hair, takes the quickest of showers, puts on perfume, and fills in her eyebrows lightly, dabs a lip stain onto her too-pale mouth. She puts on just a _touch_ of brown mascara, for subtlety's sake. Then she goes back into the bedroom, shucks off the robe, and gets under the covers again, pretending to be asleep. It lasts about half a second before Dan goes, "You took _forever_ in there. I thought you were going to sneak out through Serena's room and I'd have to walk of shame back to Brooklyn wondering if I made the whole night up."

Blair opens her eyes, fixing him with a disapproving glare. But he looks so rumpled and appealing that she can't even keep it up. God, she's a disaster. "Good morning to you too, Humphrey."

"Good morning," Dan says, almost playful, and leans in like he's going to kiss her but then doesn't. "I seem to remember you _do_ know my first name. You said it very beautifully last night, in a variety of pitches –"

Her immediate instinct is to pinch him sharply, but she settles for a shove to the shoulder. "Shut up, _Dan_." He lifts his arm to wrap around her, Blair leaning into him with surprising ease. "I can still sneak out and leave you here."

He doesn't appear to believe her, if the smile is anything to go by.

She leans her cheek on his shoulder as both of them allow the quiet to stretch, presumably wondering who will be the first to bring up the big serious questions, _what it all means_. But Blair isn't interested in facing reality just yet.

She scratches her fingers idly through the hair on his chest. "I don't remember you looking like this," she says, and is embarrassed a moment later when his eyebrows lift.

"When exactly have you seen me without clothes on? Before last night, that is."

"Over the summer, once, maybe." Then she wiggles her eyebrows at him a bit. "I _have_ snooped through Serena's phone in the past, also."

It might be the height of bad manners to mention Serena at a moment like this, but he's already said her name once and it's not like either of them forgot she existed. Dan only laughs, a light flush rising to his cheeks. "Well, whatever you saw there was likely _very_ old."

"Uh-huh," Blair says with a smile, looking up at him, and then Dan does kiss her. There's that buzz through her hands again and her stomach does a funny flip, a feeling like being on a rollercoaster: excited and scared. Last night she'd wanted him to kiss her so badly but she hadn't let herself admit it until he did.

When they pull apart, the first words out of his mouth are, "We should talk."

_Don't spoil it_. "I know."

But before any talking can happen, both their phones go off at once, and Dan groans. "Shit. I'm supposed to be having a family brunch."

"Your family is too fond of brunches," Blair says crossly as she picks up her own phone, where a text from Serena reads: _BEN LEFT CALL ME_.

Blair keeps her expression blank even as she experiences several things in quick succession: relief at the end of Serena's latest ridiculous relationship, guilt at all the things she will certainly _not_ be telling Serena about when they talk, and just a little bit of worry too – because whenever Serena's relationships end, Dan is usually the one to pick up the pieces.

She tosses the phone aside, watching Dan get hurriedly back into his clothes. _Skip it and spend the day with me_.

"I'll call you," he says, "I promise."

Blair must look a little forlorn sitting there holding the duvet against her chest, because when Dan leans in to kiss her goodbye, he presses both hands to her cheeks and lingers longer than is strictly necessary.

"I promise," he repeats, and the crazy thing is, Blair believes him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Various obligations conspire to keep them apart for the entirety of the following week. Blair decides she is no longer interested in licking her wounds and starts sending out as many résumés as she is physically capable of sending, though the only response she seems to get in return is _no thank you_. Dan is tangled up in family problems thanks to Lily's legal trouble and, though they talk a few times, it's all surface. They are perhaps avoiding each other just a little.

It's a delightful surprise when Blair is finally rewarded for her efforts, receiving a call from Epperly offering her a job assisting on a photoshoot. She's even more surprised to find Dan there when she arrives.

"Humphrey," Blair says, lips pressed together and arms crossed. "You have got to stop trying to steal my job."

He holds up his hands defensively, appearing greatly entertained by the situation. "She needed two people." Smugly, he adds, "And after all, I was a big hit at W."

"If you're counting when you hit the floor," Blair says.

"That was terrible," Dan says. "Even for you, I know you love a pun, that was terrible."

Sniping comes naturally to them, so half the day passes before the awkwardness sets in. Blair isn't sure if she runs out of wordplay or Dan acquires sudden stores of patience, or if it's just that they have to start working together to get anything done. Once they have nothing left to hide behind they don't know how to act anymore.

Blair becomes aware of Dan looking at her in a different way than she's used to Dan looking at her, his eyes on her body with something knowing lurking in them. When he catches her catching him, he gets all flushed and tries to laugh it off, wry and self-deprecating in an attractive way, hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck.

"I keep thinking I know what you look like naked," he confesses, quiet so no one else will hear.

Blair sinks her nails into her palms. "How long did we get for lunch?"

He tilts his head. "Fifteen minutes. Why?"

They have rushed, spontaneous sex in the bathroom. Blair doesn't know how it happens. She drags him in by a fistful of sweater but it's not until she's hiking up her skirt with her back against the tiled wall that she realizes what she's doing. It's all so entirely beyond her control.

Dan, for his part, goes along with it beautifully, hauls her up in his arms and kisses her hard. He's self-assured in a way she doesn't expect from him. The same could be said of their last encounter (fancy that, sleeping with Humphrey enough times to notice patterns); Dan Humphrey's got her number and he's not afraid to let her know it. Blair comes embarrassingly fast. She has admittedly always been quick on the trigger, but it's discomfiting somehow for him to know that. She can't seem to stop giving herself away.

Dan's lips are on her throat and she can feel his smug grin blossoming against her skin, as though he knows just what she's thinking. It's right then Blair realizes she's crazy about him. That's going to be a problem for her.

"Maybe now you can concentrate on your work," Blair breathes, unlocking her fisted hands from his hair.

"If that was your goal," he murmurs, "then I can tell you it's a failure. I don't think I'll be able to concentrate ever again."

She suppresses a smile, relishing the flattery, as silly as it is. "Get off me, Brooklyn," she says without heat.

"Oh, so that's how it is." Dan lets her leg down gently, tugs her clothes to rights quickly and automatically. "Five minutes ago I was rocking your world."

He has rosy lipgloss smeared across his bottom lip that Blair reaches up to wipe away. "You hang out with your lame nineties dad too much if you think 'rocking your world' is a phrase people use anymore."

"What should I use then? 'Mind-blowing,' maybe? 'Life-changing'?"

"Shame-inducing," Blair says dryly. "Let's get back to work, hm? You have some English setters to wrangle."

Before they leave, probably a good five minutes late, he touches her elbow lightly. "Hey, uh, after – after we're done today, you wanna grab dinner? My treat."

Blair holds back a cheap barb. "Okay," she says simply. "Your treat."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blair is not prepared for the full force of Humphrey's affections. One night she has a craving so he makes a stack of pancakes for her, and the one on top is shaped like a large letter B, riddled with chocolate chips. She thinks it's so stupid, it's so dumb, it's such a dumb thing for a person to do for another person.

She cuts it into a million tiny pieces so she doesn't have to look at it.

Another night she's sitting in bed rubbing lotion onto her arms, waiting for him to be done in the bathroom, when she notices a book on his bedside table. It's sandwiched between a fiction anthology and _Train Dreams_ (which he's been bugging her about), but there it is: _D.V._ , by Diana Vreeland.

Blair pulls it free and holds it in her hands, looking down at it.

"So, I know you like to sneak out at the crack of dawn because you wake up freakishly early," comes Dan's voice, growing closer and closer until he's over the threshold, "But there's this diner down the street where I have literally never been spotted by Gossip Girl, like ever, so I thought maybe we could go get breakfast like a normal – What is it?"

Blair arches an eyebrow and holds the book up.

Dan is a touch sheepish. "Oh. Well, I remembered you mentioned it."

He's also appointed himself reader of her various cover letters, offering critique she did not ask for in a way that is both annoying and needed, which makes it all the more annoying. It's mid-afternoon, a good time for them to steal time together, and Blair leans over his shoulder at his desk, frowning at the screen of his laptop.

"I don't see how you can make so many corrections in such a relatively short piece of writing," Blair huffs.

"They're not _corrections_ ," Dan insists. "Just – look, you have all the qualifications, right? It's just…sometimes an issue of _tone_."

Tone bordering on chilly, Blair says, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Dan rolls his eyes, turning slightly to pull her around and right down into his lap. It's highly patronizing but Blair sort of likes it anyway. "It means," he says patiently, also very patronizing, "that your competence can occasionally come off as arrogance instead."

"Am I not supposed to take pride in my achievements?"

In apparent reaction to the rising pitch of her voice, Dan kisses her shoulder. "No, but you do sometimes get in your own way."

"Attempting to be cute while you're being irritating does not actually negate the fact that you're being irritating."

Dan grins at her. "It does a little, though, doesn't it?"

It's Blair's turn to roll her eyes but then she kisses him on the mouth. "I know you're trying to help," she tells him, "but perhaps next time wait for help to be requested."

"Okay," he murmurs, kissing her back. "You got it."

The conversation gets away from Blair at that point. There's more kissing, and Dan Humphrey's hands under her Marc Jacobs – Blair finds that part of it has become appealing to her, the ostensible wrongness of giving it up to this particular boy here in Brooklyn. Doing something she shouldn't has always tasted a little too sweet to Blair.

She ends up facing away from him, her hands braced on the desk and panties simply tugged aside, Blair grateful she chose stockings instead of tights today. He presses kisses between her shoulder blades through the flimsy fabric of her blouse.

His name escapes her in a moan, fingers curling around the edge of the desk.

Perhaps she's not prepared for the full force of her affection for him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rather exceptional desk-sex (if Blair did say so herself) had been rather exceptionally interrupted, thanks to Dan's father and his awful timing. One minute she was relaxing against Dan's chest, shivering with aftershocks, and the next the sound of the door had them jumping up like they were electrocuted. Blair practically dove into the bathroom and then hid in there like a child until Dan was able to get rid of his father. It was an interminable twenty minutes.

They have now been avoiding a Relationship Talk for three straight days.

Blair tries to distract him by expounding on every other detail of her carefully planned future, ignoring the ways he does or does not factor in. "My three year plan," Blair recites with forceful pride injected into her voice. "Every moment is allotted for work, school, and personal obligations."

Dan looks over her color-coded plans with that same expression he had the one time she tried to make breakfast. Like he didn't want to crush her but he was going to have to tell her the egg was raw. "Your organizational skills are, as always, slightly terrifying."

Blair smiles, waiting.

"Did you schedule in time to eat, sleep, and breathe?"

And there it is. "Yes, Humphrey. After my W disaster, which I'm sure you can recall, I accepted that it was necessary to factor in basic human functions. I adjusted. That is why it's a _three_ year plan now, instead of two."

He makes a little harrumphing noise and sets her planner aside. "The other day, when you told me to wait until you asked for help? I respect that, but I gotta say – don't be weird about asking. I'm not going to think any less of you."

Blair's smile is softer then, realer. "I can't actually promise not to be weird about it," she says. "But I will endeavor to try."

"Good." Dan gives her a kiss. "So, uh, what exactly counts as 'personal obligations'?"

As segues go, it is not one of his better attempts as getting her to talk about whatever it is that's going on between them. And as distractions go, Blair's isn't one of her better attempts either. "Hmm," she murmurs, leaning in to kiss him again, more firmly. "Maybe something like this?"

An hour and a half later he's too tired to talk at all. Instead they eat Indian food while cuddled on his couch, Blair buttoned into one of his flannels with a blanket across her bare legs. They're watching _Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House_ , and Dan is pretending to be awake even though he keeps dozing against her shoulder. It's all very cozy.

Then Blair feels a sudden rising spiral of nausea, eyes widening at the abruptness of it, and she shoves him off so she can race to the bathroom and spew out her tikka masala. Dan is next to her a moment later, reaching for her hair, sliding a palm over her back.

Blair sits back on the cool tile. She has that shaky feeling you get when you're not throwing up by choice and she wipes her mouth about a thousand times with the handful of tissue Dan provides.

She thinks his eyes are a little bit wary.

"I didn't do it on purpose," Blair snaps, annoyed. As if she'd do it in front of him. Not that she does it anymore.

Dan schools his expression, offering her a smile. "Guess that place is off the order rotation, huh?"

"You should have known not to get food from a restaurant located next to a laundromat."

"We'll know better next time," he says breezily, leaning up to grab a toothbrush for her. "I'm honestly impressed you even ate it."

"Well I'm glad you're impressed, because I'm paying for it now." Blair enjoys the sulkiness in the way that she has always enjoyed sulking, because it gets her things: like Dan taking care of her, making her mint tea and holding her all through the rest of the movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day Blair feels worse, if possible. She's back at her own place with the intention of getting some work done, finishing a few papers in advance to free her up later on, but she's filled with such an inexplicable lethargy that all she's capable of doing is laying in her bed watching old episodes of _Project Runway_. She must be getting the flu. That, or her period. Blair flicks her phone open to check. Then she stares stupidly at the dumb pink calendar for several long minutes.

She was supposed to have had her period two weeks ago.

That can't be right.

She's never been regular, exactly. For a while as a teenager she'd even stopped getting her period altogether, but it's been better the last few years and she hasn't missed one since junior year, not since –

Blair freezes, brain whirring. No, it isn't possible; it couldn't be. They always use something, _always_ , because she's not on birth control right now and Dan _knows_ that. The first time, she told him the very first time and he's been so good about it, even had a condom at the photoshoot and they hadn't even been regular then.

The only reason she's not on birth control is because the last one made her totally crazy and ten pounds heavier. She was taking time to figure out what to do next and it hadn't mattered because there hadn't been anyone for such a long time. Dan caught her in the wrong window of time.

They'd always used something, hadn't they?

Blair tries to remember if they ever skipped the condom even once but she can't. It hasn't been that long: four weeks, maybe five. She could probably still count the number of times they'd even been together. If she could still count the number of times they'd been together, it was _much too soon for this_.

Maybe they rushed it once or twice. They were still in a honeymoon phase, and Blair had a penchant for exhibitionism that Dan happily went along with. They must have slipped up, but it could only have been once, was that really enough to –

It is pregnancy brain that she can't remember anything, or is that panic?

She shakes her head, trying to take a breath and calm herself down. She's being crazy. She's overreacting.

But Dan had the same food she did and he didn't get sick. _Iron stomach_ , he'd bragged.

Blair tricks Dorota into getting her a pregnancy test. With a brattiness that is at least fifty percent nerves, she snits, "Dorota, you're absolutely useless lately. The last time you were dragging this much it was because of that baby. Something you're not telling me?"

So Dorota is dispatched for a plethora of tests and when she returns, Blair absconds with one box.

She sticks it in the bottom of one of her bathroom drawers and then waits for Dorota to take her own tests – all of which, surprisingly, are positive. Surely it's gauche to be expecting concurrent with one's maid.

She congratulates and fake-smiles and magnanimously gives Dorota the afternoon off to go tell Vanya the good news. Then she drinks what feels like a gallon of water before going upstairs to pee on a stick.

Two, to be more specific. The box contains two tests.

While she waits the few minutes, sitting on the edge of her bathtub, her finger hovers over Dan's name in her phone's contact list. He would come over immediately. He would probably have wanted her to wait for him to take the test and he would probably hold her hand, be supportive, all those annoying Dan things he does.

Blair doesn't call him.

Both tests are positive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blair has plans with Dan that night, but she gets ready in a fugue, unable to stop thinking of the incriminating evidence crammed to the bottom of the bin. It must still be showing on her face when she steps over his threshold because he tips his head slightly and asks, "You okay?"

The entire cab ride over she debated what she should say but she reached no conclusions. When she opens her mouth, she honestly has no idea what's going to come out of it. "I think we should tell Serena."

"Really?" He hadn't expected that, clearly, and there's a note of skepticism in his voice – though his expression teeters on the edge of warm openness. "Tell her what, exactly?"

"That we're involved. That you're my –" Blair sees him wanting her to say the word, sees how badly he wants to hear it because she's had that same look herself many times before. As soon as the word leaves her lips, it will be official. "Boyfriend," she finishes.

She watches Dan relax automatically before his shoulders tense up and his expression goes carefully blank. Blair doesn't think she's ever met a boy so eager to commit. She remembers thinking it was strange in high school too, chalking it up to another facet of the Serena magic: as soon as she'd decide to choose a boy, of course he'd be instantly devoted.

His eyebrows draw together just slightly and it's with concern that he asks, "Is that what you want?"

Blair thinks of a B-shaped pancake. She thinks of the comforting sweep of a hand over her back. She thinks of kisses trailed over her thighs. She doesn't let herself think of those two accusing plus signs. "Yes," Blair says. "That's what I want."

And she gives herself up for a kiss. The feeling in her chest is fluttery and strange.

Blair insists upon telling Serena on her own, despite Dan's willingness to do it with her. She feels it's something she has to do by herself, a brittle and potentially horrible encounter that has to be one on one. It can't be her and Dan sitting across from Serena like two people delivering a fatal diagnosis.

"If you're sure," Dan says, maybe a little doubtfully. "This isn't your asking for help issue rearing its head again, is it?"

" _No_ ," Blair says impatiently. "I'm confused, do you really want to be the one to tell Serena you've been secretly screwing her best friend for a month? It's not exactly a prime volunteer task."

"Yeah, that's why I don't get why you want to do it."

Petulant, Blair says, "Because. Because I just – I have to." _Because you're her boyfriend and I'm stealing you away_. "Can you not be obnoxious and let me do this please? Consider yourself spared."

Dan doesn't look like he considers himself spared, but he lets the issue lie. "Fine," he says. "But I'm picking the movie."

Blair doesn't argue. Still, the rest of the evening is edgy. She's almost glad to have the Serena debacle as an excuse for it, even as the headache pulsing against her temples seems to take on a rhythm: _pregnant, pregnant, you got me pregnant_. Tired, she slumps against his shoulder, knowing he'll comfort her even if he's annoyed.

It's dangerous, that she's learning to count on Dan.

"It'll be okay," he promises with a squeeze, unaware which worry he's assuaging.

_I hope so_ , Blair thinks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blair sits in class tapping her pen against her blank notebook page, _thwack thwack thwack_. Her foot echoes the sound, Tory Burch flat hitting the carpeted floor with a muffled but consistent tapping. Every minute feels as though it's stretching out to hour proportions and Blair isn't sure how much longer she can sit still, little as she's looking forward to what's coming after this.

Namely, lunch plans with Serena.

Blair can't tell if her stifling nausea is part of the resultant anxiety or…other things. Normally she has a yogurt before class but today the smell made her gag so much she had to skip it. And every time she sees her phone light up with a text, secreted as it is in her half-open bag, her stomach clenches painfully.

She practices saying the words in her head, giving them a different inflection each time. _Dan_ is her boyfriend. Dan is her _boyfriend_. Dan is _her_ boyfriend.

She can't concentrate, but when the professor dismisses them twenty minutes later, Blair remains in her seat as long as is feasibly possible. She's actually in danger of being late by the time she steps into the little café where they'd agreed to meet; Serena is even there before her, an unprecedented turn of events.

"B," Serena says brightly, beaming. "You didn't answer any of my texts!" She gestures at the barista behind the counter. "I ordered you a latte."

"I was in class," Blair says, then changes her order to a decaf herbal tea. At Serena's raised eyebrow, Blair defends, "I'm doing a cleanse!"

"Uh-huh," Serena says with a little laugh. "Come on, let's sit; I have major Lily complaining to do."

Blair listens to Serena ramble on while attempting to dole out some thoughtful advice despite her scattered brain, despite the fact that she's barely listening. It's rude; Blair is not a stranger to rudeness. All she can think about is herself.

Blair thinks about standing in her bathroom, eyes shut tight, praying to something she barely believes in, praying to herself. _I command myself not to be pregnant_.

Finally the conversation falters, and Serena says, "You're being weirdly…nice."

Blair gapes at her. "When am I not nice?" But Serena only gives her a pointed look, so Blair sighs. "I have something to tell you."

Serena makes an _ahh_ sound, like that explains everything, and folds her hands on the tabletop, waiting. "Okay."

"You might not like it," Blair warns. "It's very shocking."

There is a trace of prepared wariness in the set of Serena's mouth but her face is otherwise friendly, in good cheer. "Should I guess?" she teases. "Are you dropping out of Columbia to go to a state school and start wearing off the rack dresses? I actually really hope it's that."

"No," Blair mutters.

But Serena is enjoying her guessing. "Are you moving upstate to start an organic farm? Are you secretly in love with Penelope? Have you decided to make Vanessa your best friend instead of me? Are you taking up artisanal honey-making? Are you and Dan madly in love?"

There's a long beat a silence while Blair fidgets with the tag of her teabag. "I wouldn't say _madly in love_."

The humor fades from Serena's expression in increments. "What?"

Blair clears her throat, still looking anywhere but at her friend. "Dan and I are…involved. Romantically. We are romantically involved."

"You're kidding," Serena says. When Blair does not confirm this, she slumps back in her seat. "I can't even imagine you two together. You don't even – When do you even see him?"

When Serena wouldn't be around to see, of course – never at parties or brunches, only in very private, very singular spaces. A relationship off the record.

"It started when we were helping you with Juliet," Blair offers. "And then there was W and, well… It just happened."

"But…Dan?" Serena says. "Dan _Humphrey_?"

The inflection is enough to almost make Blair smile, but she doesn't. "Yes. That's the one."

"You don't even like Dan. You _hate_ Dan."

"I don't," Blair says, though it still feels like a strange insistence to make. Who would have ever suspected that one day she'd want to be with Dan Humphrey? "We have a real connection. We talk about films and art and – well, lots of things."

"Okay." Serena takes a breath.

"I like being with him," Blair admits, cheeks pinking. She makes herself study the wet brown ring her cup has left on the paper napkin. "I don't know. I mean, I know he has faults, believe me, I do – no one does judgmental condescension quite like Dan, and he's stubborn and just _such_ a know-it-all, but… He makes me feel like…"

Like something in her chest is blooming. But that's too embarrassing to say, so Blair doesn't.

After a moment, voice small, Serena says, "Like you matter."

And Blair is faintly annoyed to share that with her – that knowledge, that feeling. "I suppose that's a way of putting it."

They suffer through a few more swallows of their respective drinks before Serena finds an excuse to leave – reassuring Blair, of course, that she is _fine_ and everything is _fine_ – and Blair doesn't really blame her. The Serena-and-Nate-are-dating situation of last year had been more private realization than sit down chat, but Blair can imagine that she wouldn't have done well sitting through it.

As she gets up to go, Blair dismisses all the texts from Serena she hadn't answered before and notices for the first time one message from Dorota.

_Miss B_ , it says, _Mama coming home_.


	2. Chapter 2

"She _would_ do this," Blair says, trying to keep the wild note of hysteria out of her voice. "She would give me _a single day's_ notice before showing up."

She's sitting on the floor in front of Dan's coffee table, textbooks and notes spread across its surface, laptop open, checklist bleeding red ink. She was supposed to have things together before her mother got back. She was supposed to be able to present Eleanor with another perfect GPA and a shiny new internship, a list of accomplishments. Not what she has: a GPA still recovering from her sleepless weeks, no job prospects in sight, nothing at all accomplished except a lot of sex in Brooklyn. Which has obviously led nowhere good. 

"Have you eaten today?" Dan clucks like a mother hen, setting a bowl of chicken and rice next to her without waiting for a response. 

Blair is sick to her stomach. "I don't need to be hovered over, thank you, Humphrey," she snaps.

"Ah, Humphrey again," Dan says with disappointment. He drags the book out of her hands and replaces it pointedly with the bowl of food. "I thought after the Serena thing going well, I might get upgraded to a first name full time."

Blair rolls her eyes and sets the food aside. "I'm not hungry, _Brooklyn_."

"You wound me," he calls on his way back into the kitchen. 

She watches him move around, cleaning and loading the dishwasher, putting everything to rights. He would be a good father. It's not exactly revelatory, as revelations go, but it's the first time it might affect her. 

"You know you should ask your mother."

Blair's lips tighten, nice thoughts vanishing in a puff of smoke. "No."

Dan looks up from where he's wiping down the counter, arching an eyebrow. "You should ask your mother," he repeats, as he has periodically in the last few weeks. "You cannot expect me to believe that Eleanor Waldorf doesn't have connections at any high-fashion magazines. Ask her for help."

"Leave me alone, Cabbage Patch," Blair says irritably. 

"You're already a spoiled brat, might as well take advantage of it." He makes his way back over, leaning down to press a kiss into her hair. "It's not like you have no talent. You just need to get your foot in the door, so to speak."

"I can't believe the poster boy for middle class ingenuity is telling me to use my connections."

Dan drops into the nearest armchair, smile tugging at his lips. "Now that's a title I haven't had before," he says. "It's just that… Look. We both know you can do this on your own, but you've been killing yourself for months, and if Eleanor's help could make you slow down and breathe for five minutes, then I'm all for it."

Blair tilts her head, smiling a little despite herself. "So your pushiness is just your way of expressing concern?"

He ducks his head, sheepish. "Apparently."

"Lucky for you I'm familiar with that." She shifts over, laying her hands on his knees and then sliding them up his thighs. "It's sort of cute on you."

Dan's brows raise as one. "Your shifts in mood are impossible to predict."

Blair doesn't want to hear things like that, things that could be explained by words like _hormones_ – but, more likely, just _crazy_. "Enjoy it while it lasts," she says, reaching for his belt buckle. 

Dan sinks down in the armchair, doing that boy slouch, and when she looks up at him it's all sharp jaw, cheekbones. His head tips back enough to make his throat one long arc. He never grabs her hair unless she tells him to, which Blair appreciates, and even now his hands scrabble upwards for the back of the chair instead, sliding against upholstery, digging in. 

Dan always smells very faintly of leather, the good kind, and paperbacks, Tom Ford cologne and the L'Occitane almond oil Blair keeps in his shower. He smells warm and homey, like falling asleep on his shoulder watching _The Philadelphia Story_ , like someplace she could land without breaking. 

He would be good, if. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Their first official outing as a couple would, of course, end up coinciding with an Eleanor Waldorf dinner party, just to cause Blair the maximum amount of stress at the worst time. Blair fusses beforehand, insisting on final wardrobe approval; she dithers for hours before settling on a cool gray suit, shirt pearl-gray and tie a darker slate, perfectly tailored but still looking a little out of sorts on a boy who prefers cardigans to tuxedos. He looks good when he wants to. Blair decides to match him in silver, thinking of it like armor, the two of them protected and prepared for the night ahead.

"If you adjust my tie any more you're going to strangle me," Dan says in the elevator, pushing her hands away.

"Don't give me ideas," Blair mutters darkly. 

"Don't worry. Worst case scenario, she makes me tend bar again."

"She absolutely will not." As the doors open, Blair grabs his arm and pulls him out into the room, just catching his smile out of the corner of her eye.

It's still cocktail hour. The entire apartment has been transformed for the night, switched around so the living room can accommodate a long table glimmering faintly with candlelight and silver. Eleanor is holding court in the repurposed dining room, now home to a bar and a roving pack of middle-aged socialites and their balding husbands. It's mostly an older crowd, thank god, so Blair doesn't have to flash Dan around to all their peers yet. Though Serena should be here, somewhere – maybe still upstairs, putting on the finishing touches. Serena will be here.

Blair lets her hand slip into Dan's as they cross the room, fingers interlocking. This will be fine. This will be fine. This will be fine.

"Mother?" she ventures, interrupting a patter of laughter that followed Eleanor's latest dry witticism. 

"Daughter," Eleanor returns. Her gaze, sharp and assessing as always, takes in Blair from head to toe, down to the tennis bracelet at her wrist, her hand in Dan's, and then Dan himself. Eleanor looks him over critically, as though she's never met him before. "And Serena's young man."

Blair bites the inside of her cheek, but without so much as a twitch or bat of an eyelash, Dan holds out his hand for Eleanor to shake. "Your daughter's, actually," he says. "C'mon, Mrs. Waldorf, I know you remember my name."

Against all odds, Eleanor smirks just slightly. "And I know you remember my drink order," she says. "Off you go, Mr. Humphrey."

He gives Blair an apologetic look, squeezing her fingers before leaving her to her mother. 

"So that's new," Eleanor says. "Isn't it?"

"I suppose," Blair says, waving a fidgety hand. "How's the new house? I can't wait to see it."

It's the right thing to say; her mother launches into a fresh round of complaints about the house, the renovations, the neighbors. Blair tries to nod along attentively but finds her attention straying. Cyrus has intercepted Dan and appears to be telling a grand story if the hand gestures are any indication. 

Eleanor, of course, notices. "Are you going to tell me how this started?"

"How it usually does," Blair says. "Went on a few dates, went on a few more."

Eleanor scoffs, but with that distinct twist of humor that is her hallmark. "Are you sure this is _wise_ , Blair?"

"No," Blair says, squashing a smile as Dan shoots her a wide-eyed _help me_ expression. "But I'm going to do it all the same." 

She walks away before her mother can say anything to that, sliding her arm through Dan's and happily giving in to Cyrus' relentless positivity for once. He gives her at least three hugs, as per usual, and on the last one stage whispers, "I like him," just loud enough for Dan to hear. 

It's grotesquely embarrassing in a way Blair does not exactly mind.

The dinner goes rather well, if only because Blair avoids her mother entirely and Dan is good at entertaining her, murmuring a slightly mean and very funny commentary in her ear throughout the evening. Serena ultimately doesn't show; it fills Blair with mingled relief and queasiness. 

Towards the end of the night, Blair leans heavily into his shoulder. "Verdict?"

"We're together, everyone knows, and the world didn't end. I'm calling it, it's a win." Dan pauses. "Wait, has anyone told Nate?"

Blair smiles, trying to ignore the roiling in her stomach. She had to escape dinner once already for not-only-morning sickness, feeling her mother's eyes on her back the entire time. Despite her best efforts, it must show in her face.

"Want me to stay?" Dan asks, brushing her hair back. "I can sneak out really early, dodge your parents and everything."

Blair had spent the last three days at Dan's, hadn't stepped foot in her own home once and hardly missed it. She's beginning to worry about it a bit. She feels vulnerable and clingy, especially with her mother home, and in the past that has only been a precursor to disappearing. She slides away from him, leaning back into her chair. "I'll survive," she tells him. 

"But will I?" Dan teases, and something pleasant swims through Blair's chest. _Idiot_ , she thinks, but couldn't say if she meant him or herself. 

In the morning Blair shuffles downstairs to find only Eleanor at the breakfast table. Everything has already been returned to its rightful place, the apartment as spotless as if it had never seen a party at all. Blair is exhausted despite a near seven hours of sleep and she's cranky, resentful. Her stomach rebels at the prepared spread so she settles on some green tea and very dry toast.

"Hungover?" Eleanor asks, peering at Blair over her glasses, newspaper open between her hands.

Blair wishes. Instead of answering, she says, "The dinner seemed to be a success."

"Mm." She lifts her coffee to her lips, turns a page. "I take it Mr. Humphrey didn't stay the night."

"You can call him Dan, Mother," Blair says, exasperated. "If I learned to, surely anyone can." Eleanor merely gives her a very flat _look_ , so Blair is compelled to add, "No, he did not stay. That would hardly be appropriate."

"Hardly," Eleanor agrees. "Especially with Serena asleep on the other side of the door."

Blair frowns. In her hands her toast becomes a pile of crumbs. _Serena knows_ , she wants to say. _This isn't any of your business. No one cared when Serena went out with my boyfriend. Dan is funny, isn't he, and smart and handsome, isn't that enough? When is it enough?_

"I meant with you and Cyrus here," Blair says. 

Blair imagines telling Eleanor about the stick turning pink, unplanned and unexpected as it is. It's a thought that had crossed her mind before, back in high school, and she imagines the reaction then or now would be much the same. There is rarely any real comfort coming from Eleanor, just criticism, just disappointment, just _do better_. 

Finally Eleanor folds her paper and pushes her glasses onto her head, standing with her cup in one hand. "I like him more than the last one," she says. "You like him?"

Blair looks up at her. "Obviously, Mother."

Eleanor nods a little and smoothes a hand over Blair's hair before moving towards the staircase, but she doesn't say anything else. 

Blair isn't sure what to call it. With her mother, somehow wins usually feel like losses anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blair sees Serena across a courtyard at Columbia and it's startling for a moment, like Serena is a too-familiar stranger. It's a moment of unknowing, seeing a tall blonde girl and realizing half a second later it's someone important to her. They haven't spoken in two weeks, maybe. Blair's been busy.

Eleanor and Cyrus have taken up residence in New York for the foreseeable future, which means Blair has been spending even more time at Dan's in an effort to avoid her mother's semi-watchful eye. Though there had been an official boyfriend-meets-the-family brunch where Dan had the honor of fielding both Cyrus' well-meaning inquiries and Eleanor's less well-meaning interrogation. 

Afterwards, Blair offered, "Over the summer, you can meet Daddy," and made sure not to look at Dan as she said it. She wouldn't let herself take it back either, not when Dan was trying so hard to appear as though he wasn't pleased, muttering something about bringing her up to Hudson.

But that had been the least of her obligations: Blair's hassling of every magazine in the tri-state area had finally yielded results.

It had become automatic to check her email immediately upon waking, though considering her endeavors had been mostly fruitless, Blair hadn't had much hope. Yet there it was in clear black and white, subject line reading _re: Teen Vogue internship_. 

Blair smacked Dan awake. "You have to read this for me!"

He peered at her with one squinting eye, which was apparently enough to gauge how desperate the situation was, because he held out his hand. There was a lot of grumbling and eye-rubbing until Dan quieted down to read the email, smiled at her, and said, "You got it, Waldorf."

Blair had been so happy that she made the abrupt wake-up _very_ worth his while. They lay together later, Blair fairly thrumming with contentment, and Dan whispered with an air of confession that he'd started a novel. 

Everything is beginning to feel as though it's on track, everything going right for once, and there isn't anything in the world more terrifying to Blair than that.

(There is also, of course, the time bomb ticking away in her body.)

Serena smiles at her across the sunny courtyard and raises a hand in a wave. They meet in the middle, clutching books and bags anxiously, feeling as though two weeks has been two years.

"Got time for lunch?" Serena asks.

They go somewhere nearby that's packed with way too many students. They squeeze into a corner table that rightfully seats four, but Blair drops her bag pointedly on the empty end to dissuade anyone looking for a spot to sit. 

After several moments of silence, Blair tries for small talk, internally cringing. "So…how are you? How's – how's Lily, your family?"

Serena waves that off. "Doing her classic denial thing. But it's fine, it's going to be fine."

Blair nods, attempting to look supportive and resolute. "I've been keeping up a little, through –" She falters. "Well, the news, I suppose, like anyone else."

Serena just looks at her and then she says gently, "You can say his name. I won't implode." But her gaze is focused on her salad instead of Blair when she speaks next. "How are things going?"

Blair fiddles with her heart ring, twisting it around her finger. "Good," she says hesitantly, then clears her throat and continues more assertively, giving Serena a short run-down of everything that had happened recently. Almost everything. "I thought it would be weird, dating him. I mean, not that I thought about it an awful lot before, just, I don't know, I thought it would be a lot to get used to. But it's not, it's…easy."

"I'm so happy for you, B." Serena gives her a smile that's mostly there, though her eyes remain a little distant. "It seems like everything's going your way."

Blair intends to return the smile, maybe change the subject to something safer, but instead she quite unexpectedly bursts into tears. 

Blair is not the kind of girl who cries in public, not if she can help it, but there she is doing it nonetheless. Serena is taken aback but recovers lightning-fast, grabbing Blair's bag before hustling her outside and into a cab so quickly it's possible the event occurred un-spotted. Blair hopes so; she couldn't handle the Gossip Girl commentary today.

In the cab Serena rubs her back, looking worried. "B, what's going on?"

Blair shakes her head, gulping air, and then the words find their way out of her anyway.

Serena's eyes widen. "What?"

"I'm pregnant," Blair says again, loudly, almost angrily. "I'm pregnant, that's why I'm – that's why I start crying in cafés, apparently, and why my mother thinks I'm relapsing and why I pick fights with Dan and why I can't look you in the eye lately –"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down," Serena says, brow still furrowed in concern. "Let's – we have to go somewhere quiet to talk."

Serena calls ahead to make sure the penthouse is empty of parents and to send Dorota out on some errands. Blair is grateful. She's even more grateful that Serena holds back all questions until they are curled in Blair's bed like when they were young, amongst piles of pillows. 

"You're sure?" is the first inquiry, followed by, "It's, um. It's Dan's?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I saw the doctor," Blair says. "And yes. There hasn't been anyone else."

Serena worries her bottom lip but does a remarkable job of pretending that has no effect on her. "Are you going to have it?"

Blair is silent.

Serena seems to accept that as an answer. "Did you make the appointment?"

It feels childish and silly that she hasn't. Blair should have been able to take care of this efficiently as soon as she found out but she hadn't; she'd ignored it, buried it, denied it. She did what she's always done and now she feels her immaturity acutely. Did she think it was just going to go away? "Not yet."

Serena observes her impassively for a moment. Then she says, "It's okay."

Blair gives her a slightly incredulous look. "Nothing about this is okay."

Serena's expression softens into one of more open concern. "I meant it's okay to _not_ want it. It's okay to be confused. It's okay to be afraid." 

"Oh, how would you know," Blair says, snappish because she doesn't know any other way to be. Dan would want it, she thinks. It doesn't matter how uncertain their relationship is, that's the kind of guy Dan is: he would want it. 

Serena is probably too used to Blair's unnecessary attitude by now and no reaction at all shows on her face. "I know," she says after a minute. "I had one."

For one wild, horrifying second, Blair thinks Serena means she had a baby. " _When_?" Blair demands, almost indignant. "How could I not know about this?"

Serena presses her lips together to prevent something like a smile at Blair's tone, and then shakes it off, growing more serious. "I was fourteen," she says. "It was the beginning of freshman year, it must've…um, happened in the summer. I took a test and Lily found it and, well. She took care of it."

Blair's brows draw together. "You should've told me, S."

Serena shrugs. "I was a kid. I didn't even want to think about it much."

"Do you?" Blair wonders. "Think about it much."

"Sometimes," Serena allows. "But it was so long ago it's like it happened to someone else."

"Do you ever regret it?" Blair asks.

"No," Serena says. 

Blair nods a little, gaze dropping down to study the stitching of the duvet. "Dan would be so good at it, you know." Apologetically, she adds, "Of course you know. I don't just mean that whole thing with Georgina's baby. He would be so patient and so – so devoted." It's a hushed, almost embarrassed statement next. "He would be such a good dad." And maybe his goodness would make Blair better in turn – less scared, more capable, less Eleanor. 

"Yeah," Serena says with a dip of her head. "He would. But what do you want?"

Blair already knows the answer, of course. She has since the first second she saw that pink symbol. "I want the abortion." Her hand finds Serena's over the blanket. "Will you come?"

"Of course," Serena says with the kind of tenderness and immediacy that releases tension Blair didn't even realize she was holding. "But…" Serena hesitates. "Are you going to tell Dan?" Blair only shrugs. "Because he'd – I think he would be understanding. And I think he'd want to know."

"I don't know," Blair says, just to say something. Then she rubs a hand through her hair, careless of styling. "What if it ends up on Gossip Girl?"

Serena squeezes Blair's fingers again. "Then I'll say it's me."

It's firm, unhesitating, and Blair meets Serena's eyes, feeling so grateful she doesn't even know what to say.

The next time she's with Dan, Blair lays awake while he breathes beside her, even and quiet. She glances over to make sure he's asleep before pushing the comforter away and laying a hand atop her own flat stomach. There's nothing to give it away. Blair has always kept an eye to the shape of her stomach and she's certainly not forgiving, but there's no denying that no one would ever be able to tell. 

She thinks of dinner with her mother, Dan's hand on her knee under the table – not lascivious or anything like that, just supportive. Just his way of saying _I'm here_.

But she still doesn't know how to tell him. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There's no reason to wait after that.

Once it becomes a shared secret instead of Blair's private panic, she can't very well go on pretending it's not happening. She calls the doctor and makes her appointment, placing a little red dot in the corner of the chosen date in her schedule. 

She can't eat anything the morning of, not that she would be able to anyway. She makes an early appointment in the hopes of being in and out with little fanfare, so she and Serena are both sleepy and red-eyed when they arrive at the office – on the West Side, not Blair's usual doctor. Just to be safe. 

Blair is tense as she waits, fills out more forms, signs off on her consent. She feels brittle. Serena tries to rub her back briefly but gives up; the attempt at comfort only makes Blair inexplicably angry. She just wants it to be over. 

Even once they call her in it takes too long for Blair's liking. She has to hear another lecture about _options_ and birth control, take another pregnancy test ("I've taken about fifty by now," Blair says tightly. "I promise, it's in there."), another blood test, another sonogram. Serena is by her side the whole time, being open and kind, asking appropriate questions of the doctor whereas Blair can only grit her teeth in annoyed impatience. At least they finally give her some Vicodin, but then she has to wait even _longer_ for it to take effect. 

When it's finally time, Serena is sent back to the waiting room, but only after pressing a kiss to Blair's temple. "It'll be done before you know it, B," she promises.

Blair had thought that the waiting room was the worst part – sitting amongst all those similarly fidgety women who didn't want to make eye contact. But she thinks it's absolutely worse in the bustling minutes before the procedure, her head pillowed on crinkling paper, listening to the patter and chatter of nurses while her heart hammers out of her chest. She should've told Dan. Why hadn't she told Dan?

Blair jumps when the nurse touches her shoulder. 

"Nervous, honey?" the nurse asks, nodding towards the machine where Blair's heart rate is zipping along. 

"I'm fine," Blair says automatically. If Dan were here, he'd make some stupid joke that would make her anxiety dissipate despite herself.

Once the doctor arrives there's an uptick in activity, everyone making final checks and every single person in the room asking Blair how she is one more time. The doctor, a brisk middle-aged woman, gives Blair an impersonal pat on the shoulder and tells her it's time to begin. The anesthesiologist injects something into the IV. 

Blair has long enough to wonder when it's going to kick in before she's out, and the next thing she's aware of is coming to hazily in recovery. There are other women around her with similarly vague, drugged up smiles. A nurse gives her a pleasant, encouraging look and offers her a tiny paper cup of apple juice. The tape from the IV has left a splotchy patch of itchy skin on the inside of her elbow, though the needle mark itself is imperceptible.

It's over, Blair realizes. She smiles and then she laughs, a silly drunk giggle. It's over. Her reaction is inappropriate, ridiculous, and she knows her giddiness is just the sedatives wearing off but the sense of relief is overwhelming. She just feels so good, so relieved, so free. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blair spends the following three days not answering her phone. Then the pile up of texts from Dan ( _Waldorf I'm beginning to think you're dead in a ditch somewhere_ ) start to become so ridiculous she has to say _something_ , though all she comes up with are lame protestations about work.

"He even called me asking about you," Serena says. "You have to talk to him, B."

But Blair has not yet developed a course of action for her first conversation with Dan post-abortion. She's terrified that it'll just burst out of her mouth the second she sees his face so she continues to keep him at arm's length, choosing instead to mope around the penthouse in silk pajamas reading a Judy Garland biography. 

She crosses paths with Eleanor in the kitchen one morning. Blair doesn't have work or class so she's planning to settle in for a long moody sulk full of imagined conversations with Dan that she's too chicken to have in reality. Eleanor observes her with passive interest as the water brews for tea. "Have you broken up with Mr. Humphrey?"

Blair starts. "No," she says, a touch snottily. 

Eleanor nods slightly. "Have you had a fight then?"

"What's with the sudden interest, Mother?" 

"Aren't I allowed to be interested in my daughter's life? As far as I know that _is_ part of the job description."

Blair rolls her eyes. "No, we haven't," she says. "I'm avoiding him."

Eleanor arches an eyebrow. "Oh?"

It had just slipped out; Blair hadn't meant to say anything. "It's nothing," she backtracks. "It's stupid."

"Hmph," Eleanor murmurs. "And that internship, that's going well?"

Blair narrows her eyes, her skin prickling with familiar defensiveness. She could never tell the difference between Eleanor caring and Eleanor criticizing. Is she just looking for gaps in Blair's story? "What do you want to hear, Mother? I made a mess of everything, alright? I've been ruining things for myself forever, really, and I wasted the entire year but now I'm fixing it. I'm putting it back together. I don't need your needling."

"You always think the worst of me," Eleanor says lightly. "I know how hard you've been working, Blair. I'm proud of you."

Blair can't help a blink of surprise but she refuses to take the words to heart. "Oh."

"I'm not so wicked all the time," Eleanor reminds her and smiles just slightly. Blair's greatest fear has always been becoming her mother because she knows how easy it would be, how much it's already true. 

"I know," Blair says, almost apologetic. "Me either." 

She's tempted, for a moment, to tell her mother about the pregnancy and its subsequent dissolution. Eleanor is a liberal woman and she's never been sentimental or precious about things; she might be critical, but Blair isn't so sure she'd be condemning. Her mouth opens but then it shuts, and instead of speaking she gives her mother a small smile in return. Even without fear of recrimination, she doesn't trust Eleanor enough. Maybe one day.

Until then, Blair has Serena. And she's beginning to accept that she has Dan too.

 _I miss you_ , she texts him, finally. _Come over_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blair is sitting on her bed pretending to read a magazine when Dan arrives. The first thing she does is get her arms around him, savoring the way he feels, the way he smells. God, she's ridiculous. It hasn't even been a week. 

"You'd think you hadn't seen me in years," he teases her, but he sounds happy enough about it. "I was going a little crazy. I thought you were breaking up with me."

"Don't be silly." Blair has always liked the way Dan says things straight out, no obfuscating. "But I do have to tell you something." 

"Can it hold?" Dan asks, leaning into her so much she tips over laughing. "Maybe you could kiss me first?"

Blair does but she's conscious that it can't go farther than that, even though she still twists her arms around his neck, brings her leg around his hips. "Dan," she protests with another laugh she can't help – this is serious, he's going to think she doesn't have a heart at all once she tells him. She sobers after another kiss, puts her hand on his chest. "We really do have to talk."

He props himself on his elbow, shifting so he's next to her on the bed. "Oh no," he says. "Those words are never good."

Blair bites her lip, running her fingertips over his cheek. "I don't want you to hate me."

His expression shifts to genuine wariness, which Blair had been afraid of. "What happened?"

"I took a test," Blair says. "A pregnancy test. It was –" She clears her throat. "I made an appointment and I took care of it."

Dan's face changes though Blair can't read anger in it, at least not yet – confusion, certainly, and blank, flat surprise. He pushes upright, shifting to sit at the edge of the bed. His back is to her. "You mean…"

"You got me pregnant and I had an abortion," she says, abrupt and rushed.

"When?"

"Monday morning," Blair says. "I wasn't sick, or busy with work."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Dan asks and Blair steels herself for his anger. But then he says, "I would've come with you." He looks over his shoulder, brows knotted with concern. "You didn't have to do it by yourself."

"You don't – you're not mad?"

"I wish you'd told me." It isn't an answer, but when she sits up and curls against his back, chin on his shoulder and hands clasped over his chest, he covers her fingers with his. "I wouldn't have… I'd support whatever you wanted to do. You know that, right?"

"I do now," Blair murmurs. They're quiet for a moment as she leans her cheek against his shoulder. "I wish I'd told you too." 

She hesitates to say more, considering he's reacting well; she doesn't know if it would bother him to hear her say that she was afraid to tell him because she was afraid he might convince her to keep it. The fact that such a thing was even a possibility makes her worried about his effect on her. It could be dangerous. She knows all about that.

"It was just so soon," she adds, still soft-voiced. "I want to date you. I don't want…all those other things. I didn't want to lose what I have with you before I'd even really had it."

Dan tilts slightly so he can kiss the side of her nose. "That's what I want too, Waldorf." He pauses. "Okay, but: when did we not use a condom?"

"Right!" Blair says, indignant. "We're switching brands. I'm not satisfied with the margin of error."

Dan's lips twitch with suppressed laughter before he kisses her and Blair knows it's going to be fine, everything is going to be fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer finds Blair and Serena moving out of the penthouse.

They choose a newer building, farther East than Blair would like, and the kitchen is an absolute joke, but it's fresh and clean, painted an all-over shining white, and the floor-to-ceiling windows are laughably delightful. She and Serena clash over every single design decision, but Blair likes that too.

"You're still too far," Dan complains every time he comes over.

"No one told you to live in Brooklyn," Blair tells him.

"We can't compromise here? You couldn't have chosen somewhere in Midtown, at least?"

"God, if the next thing out of your mouth is a suggestion I live downtown, then I'm walking out, I don't care if this is my apartment."

But compromise is something they endeavor to keep in mind, and Blair spends at least half her time in his loft. And it's on one such occasion, going through his desk looking for Post-Its (honestly) that she finds a neatly printed hardcopy of his novel, covered in red ink corrections in Dan's own handwriting. Of course she sits down immediately in the desk chair and reads it start to finish.

"Humphrey," she calls after she's done. "I take issue with your prose. You have not described my eyes as 'sparkling' even once."

Dan appears in the doorway in record time. "You did not," he says.

Blair bites her lip, eyebrows raising as she holds up the manuscript. "I might have. Tell me: have you been holding a candle this _entire_ time, then?"

"We're breaking up," Dan tells her. He moves to grab the pages, which Blair dangles out of reach. "That's it. This is my line in the sand."

"Don't you think," Blair says, hopping up out of her seat so she can dodge his attempts, "that 'ninety-eight pound, bon-mot tossing, label-whoring package of girly evil' is one signifier too many?"

She lets him catch her but the pages go everywhere, all out of order, a cascade of crinkling paper all around them. "Not when all of them are _true_ ," Dan says, practically picking her up. "Especially that last one. Totally evil."

Blair grins before she kisses him. "You're horribly sentimental," she says. "And a revisionist. I loved it."

"Yeah, well, you would," he says, smile tugging at his own lips. "Pot, kettle."

"It's either very lucky or very unfortunate that we found each other," Blair says.

"Both, I think," Dan tells her. "But maybe that second one a little more."

"Yes," she agrees, "I certainly feel very unlucky."


End file.
